With the rapid development of society and the constant improvement in people's living standards, electric bicycles have become necessities in the daily life of ordinary people, a large number of electric bicycles in many varieties are currently sold on the market, but the electric bicycles have the disadvantages of large volume, heavy weight, and inconvenience in storage and transport.
In 2013, Stigo Limited launched a conveniently foldable electric bicycle (visit the official website of Stigo: http://stigobike.com), wherein a video captured by using the product was immediately uploaded to Knewsmart and TencentVideo (the video link address in Knewsmart: http://knewsmart.com/news/5346/, the issue date: Sep. 24, 2013; and the video link address in TencentVideo: http://v.qq.com/boke/page/i/z/j/i0118mtpnzj.html, the upload date: Sep. 24, 2013), and another video captured by using the product was also uploaded to Youku on Sep. 27, 2013 (the video link address in Youku: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjEOMTYyMjcy.html). The above videos can also be seen by searching other websites in Google.
Stigo Limited submitted a patent application for an invention (application number: 14164491.4; title of the invention: foldable vehicle) to the European Patent Office on Apr. 11, 2014. Stigo Limited filed a Chinese invention patent (application number: 201410204459.3; title of the invention: foldable bicycle) on May 14, 2014 based on the application submitted to the European Patent Office as a priority document. Stigo Limited submitted a design patent (application number: CN201430069387; publication date: Oct. 1, 2014) of the product to the State Intellectual Property Office of the People's Republic of China on Mar. 28, 2014. A technician from Hubei Province submitted a utility model patent entitled “portable foldable electric bicycle” (application number: 201420169248.6; announcement date: Oct. 22, 2014) on Apr. 10, 2014. A company in Hangzhou submitted an invention patent entitled “foldable electric vehicle” (application number: 201410677404.4; publication date: Mar. 25, 2015; a utility model patent was filed for the patent, wherein the application number is 201420706209.5 and the authorization announcement number is CN204223100U) on Nov. 4, 2014.
The foldable electric vehicle disclosed by Stigo Limited has a novel concept and strong practicality, but also has significant defects; and a comprehensive analysis of its patent documents, product videos and real product can demonstrate that the mechanical connection relations and the folding and moving process described in the technical solution of Stigo are as shown at S1 to S4 in FIG. 10 of the specification. The technical disadvantages are described below.
1) Two towing wheels are arranged at a tail end of a vehicle body and far from the center of gravity of the vehicle body, and nearly the entire weight of the vehicle falls on the hands of a person who tows the vehicle based on physics knowledge, thus towing is performed with great effort.
2) Since the towing wheels are arranged at the tail end, it is a rear wheel rather than the towing wheels that actually function to support towing during towing (see the scene in the video of Stigo where a lady who tows the vehicle gets off the subway, showing that the rear wheel rotates when touching the ground). The towing wheels can only be provided with a supporting function by a person who is tall enough or by bending the arms of a user as much as possible to manually lift the rear wheel off the ground, but the action of bending arms for a long time necessarily increases the difficulty for the user, thus towing is performed with great effort (see the scene in the video of Stigo where a lady who tows the vehicle gets on the subway, wherein the lady needs to bend arms to allow the towing wheels to touch the ground).
In fact, Stigo had found the inconvenience brought by this design defect in 2016, and therefore submitted a patent application for an improved scheme of the design (application number: EP16155038; filling date: Feb. 10, 2016) to the European Patent Office in February, 2016, and submitted a Chinese patent application for the scheme (application number: CN2016203101954; publication date: Sep. 21, 2016; refer to the third paragraph (paragraph 0004) of the background section of the application) to the Chinese Patent Office on Apr. 13, 2016. According to the patent documents in which the design has been improved, particularly a detailed analysis of the real product, it is found that Stigo changes the towing wheels fixed at the tail end of the vehicle body as a fine adjustable (telescopic and fine-movable) structure, but the essence and technical effects of the technical solution are not changed, the improved scheme is undesirable and the structure is complex, thus increasing the production cost.
3) After being folded, the vehicle body easily tips over (see the scene at the end of the video of Stigo where the vehicle body tips and rolls over when passing through a security instrument in an airport).
4) When the vehicle body is folded, a saddle moves backward to occupy the rear space of the vehicle body such that the vehicle cannot be provided with a baggage rack (box).
The technical solutions proposed by the following two applicants (application number: 201420169248.6, 201410677404.4 and 201420706209.5) are exactly the same as the technical solution of the product disclosed by Stigo Limited, and therefore do not have substantive technical progress and significant inventiveness.
During the examination of the priority document (a PCT patent) of the present patent application, the examiner has drawn a conclusion that the present PCT patent application is inventive based on the Chinese Utility Model Patent Application No. 201420706209.5 to a company in Hangzhou as a reference document.